It was said - and was written about in "Taim Bilong Masta" - that there were three types of people that came to Papua New Guinea: missionaries, moneymakers and misfits.
I was visiting the (c)old "Heimat" and later lived and worked in South-West Africa during the Australian Poseidon Boom. My ignorance of how badly that boom ended made me an only too easy victim when fellow-accountants in Rabaul talked about the next boom, and persuaded me to "invest" what little money I had in the next "Poseidon". My ignorance continued in Bougainville where I earnt a lot more money which meant that I continued to "invest" a lot more money in the next "Poseidon".
After almost three years and having worked ten hours a day, six days a week under the most appalling conditions on the Bougainville Copper Project, all I had to show for it were a handful of glossy but now totally worthless share certificates. No, a moneymaker I definitely was not!
As for being the missionary-type, well, my last school certificate which gave me a "sehr gut" in every subject except "Religion", foreshadowed my later conversion to the Freethinkers. No, a missionary I was neither!
So, by the process of elimination, it must've been my being a misfit that brought me to Papua New Guinea --- and a misfit I've been ever since!
